Shadows
by Eliza4892
Summary: Post Through The Looking Glass, takes place directly after the offisland portion. One survivor lets go.


It was her own fault for being awake in the first place. At least partially anyway. If she would've been in bed, asleep, she wouldn't have heard the incessant knocking. That would've been the end of it. Her visitor would've just turned and walked away after several minutes of determination. But Juliet was awake, and on the couch with a book, the television glaring soundlessly in the background, and it was all because some stupid news report two days ago had given her a bad case of nostalgia that she couldn't shake off.

When she first heard it she'd lifted up the blinds, glancing outside to see the car parked on the street in front of her house. She didn't need to look at the shadowy form standing at the door to know who it was.

Hesitantly she undid the locks, taking one final deep breath before turning the knob and revealing the young woman who wore all blue, her makeup long since ruined, what was left of it smudged down her cheeks in the form of tear tracks she had tried to wipe away and failed. "Kate."

Kate nodded, and Juliet stepped back to let her in, closing the door behind her, the other woman headed into the living room, the layout of the house giving her no trouble. This was not Kate's first time here.

"It's late," Juliet said, following her. "Shouldn't you be at home?"

The other woman eyed the clock, guiltily, then quickly switched her focus back to Juliet. "He called me again."

No surprises to be found here apparently. Juliet sighed, sitting down, leaning her head against her hand as she watched Kate. "Please tell me you didn't…"

"I did." Kate cut her off. "I did. I had to after – did you see the news."

"Yeah," Juliet nodded, her foresight as good as ever. She'd almost been waiting for this.

"He's worse than he was before. He's still drinking, and he doesn't look like he's slept in weeks."

"I thought you said he never slept anyways." Juliet interjected.

"We have to do something." Kate nearly yelled, right over her. "We have to do something about him because I can't keep getting these phone calls and I can't keep seeing him like this. I can't do this."

"He's been this way for years Kate." Juliet reminded her, swallowing hard, and reaching out to the other woman who refused to stand still much less sit down and so Juliet had no choice but to watch her pace. "Ever since we came back. You know this."

"No, he has not been like _this_." Kate said, the last word sounding more like a curse than anything else. "He told me he flies back and forth on the weekends trying to see if the plane will crash. He told me we need to go back."

This caught Juliet's attention. "Go back?"

"Go back to the island. He wants to go back to the island. Like it's going to fix anything that's already happened. " Kate locked eyes with her, then looked away, her voice thick with tears as she said, "And if I didn't leave when I did I swear I would've told him that we'd find a way, that I'd go back."

"You know we can't do that, they made us –"

"I know, okay. I know that. But he just looked so broken and I – " Kate paused, taking the moment to calm down a bit. Juliet faintly remembered the days when Jack would get her as riled up, as upset, as Kate was now. That was before she had realized that it was easier to let go, to detach herself. It was the only way to stay sane. "I hate what this is doing to him."

"There is nothing you can do about it," Juliet replied, the words feeling practiced. It was what she always said.

"There has to be something."

"What? What are you going to do? We can't go back and we can't change the past. You obviously can't make him realize that so he's going to have to figure it out on his own. He can't stay this way forever."

"I know." There was something dark in her eyes. "Why do you think he was on that bridge in the first place?"

Juliet shook her head fiercely. "No. That's not it."

"You don't know that."

"Jack wouldn't do that." Juliet insisted.

"How would you know? You haven't even seen him." Kate responded, exasperated.

"I'm not the one he calls because he knows I won't come." Juliet replied, and her words were harsh but they were true. She would probably just hang up on him for the sake of keeping herself uninvolved. But Kate had to keep coming here, and getting her right in the thick of it. "I'm not the one he calls because he knows I'm not in love with him."

"Stop it." Kate told her, voice deadly now that Juliet had called her out.

"Well then why else do you go every time he calls? You already know that by the time he's gotten to the point of calling you he's in pretty bad shape and still you go." She was aware that she should probably be more sympathetic towards Kate, that this wasn't really her fault, it was all because Jack hadn't ever learned how to deal with failure or guilt, but right now she had a prime chance to say everything she'd wanted to say for the past year but hadn't in the interest of not pushing Kate away. "If this isn't about feelings then what is it about?"

"It's about a man who needs help and you can't even take the time to talk about it for five minutes." Kate had decided to return the favor by starting in on her now.

"Don't even try that because it's not going to work." Juliet warned. "Every time you pick up that phone you make a choice to go back. You make the choice to deal with this again. And if you think that you can fix him you can't. He's beyond that."

Kate looked at her, disbelief clear in her expression. "So you think I should what, just leave him alone, even though it's pretty clear I'm all he has."

"He doesn't have you, Kate. You ran when he did. Because you can't actually make a decision or own up to having any actual feelings, which really isn't helping him either." Kate opened her mouth, but Juliet kept right on talking. "All you are to him is an enabler. You show up, and he thinks if he says the right things he can convince you to go back. And you go back because you think if you say the right things then you can snap him out of this when all you really should be doing is saying goodbye."

There was silence for a long moment while Juliet calmed down and Kate let her words register. Then, "I should go."

Juliet rose. "Yes, you should." Kate turned towards the doorway but Juliet stopped her, finally getting up the nerve to do what she'd known she needed to do since they'd gotten back. Her last bridge to burn. "And you shouldn't bother coming back here next time he calls you."

It wasn't as if Kate was surprised by this, she'd probably been expecting it in fact, but still she asked, "Why?"

She forced the words past her lips. "Because I'm saying goodbye."

After a second, Kate nodded, meeting her eyes in what would be the last time, because Juliet knew for sure that this really was it for them. No turning back. Then, without another word spoken between them, Kate walked out the door.

Juliet didn't bother to watch her leave. She didn't dwell. She simply pulled down the blinds and locked the door, leaning against it, and pressing her head against it's surface as her very last connection to three years of her life drove away, back home to try and figure out a way to put a man back together who would never truly be the one she had fallen in love with. And she did this because she had no other choice. She needed to move on.

This was the only way.


End file.
